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The Gift
The Gift The Gift refers to the magical failsafe created by a ritual that turned the tide of Aradoth's war agaisnt the Withered Aegis and enabled the Living races to push back, regain morale, and start the Age of Empires. All of the races of Aradoth have a chance of escaping death. Essentially, they respawn at a place where their soul is bound - either a shrine, their birthplace, or special islands that have been prepared and dedicated to the purpose of getting the newly gifted back on their feet. What happens is, on death, the person's body is transformed into energy and, along with their spirit, is sent to the spirit realm, where it is pulled back and returned to wherever their soul is bound. No items or goods travel with them, and they arrive naked of anything but their powers. They face no reduction in level or ability - though they are often hungry and dizzy after returning to life - and this happens indefinitely. They cease aging properly, though gifted children will reach adulthood. There is no way to determine who will have the gift until they die for the first time. It does not seem to run in families, nor does it follow any predictable patterns of race or gender or anything. They may seem immortal, but they are not - after a time - usually well into extremely old age - they will slow. They will feel tired and returning from death will become harder and harder to do. Eventually, they will die a peaceful death, their souls weak from the exertion of living. The First Time A Gifted's first death is often traumatic. They are killed, and then they are ripped away from the after life and suddenly are alive again. Often, friends of theirs are not. It is not an experience they forget. Their death can be violent, an accident, an assasination, suicide, drowning - anything save for old age. Notes The gift only occurs on the contident of Aradoth, and the nearby Satyr isles, Scorpion isle, and Lesser Aradoth, due to the nature of the ritual. Any foreign travellers that are of the same species as an Aradothean (IE, a Lantanian human or a Xinese Saris) have a chance to be gifted if they die on Aradothean soil (or the surrounding seas). However, a species not present on Aradoth will not be gifted. The Nation of Xin and its god are working on a way to change this and gain it for themselves. However, the other nations do not know or do not care about it. Throughout Aradoth, the Gifted have special rights and few restricitons on their freedom of movement. They also have special punishments and otherwise generally recieve special treatment, as they are essential to the war efforts and, well, they dont die right. The Aegis and the Gift This does mean that compatable necromancers have occasionally become gifted when they are killed on Aradothean soil without any sort of backup plan or without being turned into undead. However, the nature of the gift and the ritual behind it interferes with the necromantic energies that they gained at initiation, and they end up returning to life as any other gifted will - typically at their birthplace or the Isles of the Gifted, naked and hungry. However, they will lose all of their memories and levels - though they find it very easy to relearn skills similar to their former class (IE a fighter can take levels as a ranger easily) and thus return quickly to their former level of power and ability. Memories are only regainable through magical means and they will not recognize even the oldest and dearest of friends, though they will be recognizable. Gifted necromancers are a secret that only the god of spies is aware of, as memory loss/amnesia is an uncommon side effect of the trauma of dying, and they tend to integrate into the Living Races alliance easily.